– Helping companies and non-profits use social media wisely

How to develop a digital strategy – a 101 lesson for non-profits

I was recently asked to present at My Charity Connects – an annual sold out conference helping non-profits understand how to use emerging technologies for social good. I had a tough mandate – the conference organizers had pre-sold the topic “Developing a Digital Roadmap” – intended to be an advanced topic – to which 60 people signed up – all before I was asked to be a speaker. The topic was a good one and, in my experience heavily in demand, and so I was pleased to get @canadahelps (Amy)’s call.

Truthfully, I find it tougher to speak on strategy development versus any random social media topic. It is a topic that runs the risk of being dry, difficult to explain, hard to share frameworks, and perhaps at risk of presenting motherhood.

Motherhood like this – what is strategy? (then I visually depict the gap to a future goal ..e.g. revenue/profit)

Right or wrong – I always perceive non-profit audiences to be generous and forgiving and so, I boldy looked adding the frameworks that have both shaped my thinking over my career or included ones that I’m still working on.

The first is the concept of consumer expectations – that there are basic, satisfying and differentiating expectations (experiences) that a consumer has.

Basic expectations are experiences that must exist for consumers to do business with you. Without them, consumers will leave your franchise. This may include presence in social media channels, response and interaction. Satisfying expectations make consumers happy but do not grow market share. So businesses should not over-invest in these areas. Finally, differentiating experiences are ones that consumers would switch brands, competitors for.

Of course – this framework begs the question on what qualifies as a basic, satisfier & differentiator experience. So the next chart was my “social media maturity” framework – that I’ve been futzing with for a number of months.

I welcome your thoughts & feedback – see below for the slideshare link…

[human moment: notice this post date of June 15 is earlier than my published date of July 21st? I have tons of posts stilling in draft format.. dying on the vine.. so I’m going to just publish shorter thoughts as my twitter cannabalizes my blogging and my work cannabalizes my twitter. :-0]